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I don't think you're actually meditating. Your expectations may be a bit out of line.

Keep this in mind. Shakyamuni didn't meditate to relieve stress, or relax or exercise mindfulness. He meditated to find the solution to birth, old age, sickness and death, and became Buddha.

Why do you meditate? Maybe you should start there.

@IdleChater said:
Why do you meditate? Maybe you should start there.

It seems to me that meditating with a goal in mind is to set yourself up for a mind-generated hallucination, it builds a certain tension. The mind will generally try to give you what you want.

That is why I meditate with ‘just sitting’, it means you let your mind empty of all things other than sitting. No goals, just letting the sensation of sitting be in body and mind, and watching that.

@how said:
There is just about every possible feeling in the world that will arise at some time or another in a meditation practice. Judging our meditation in response to such visitations shows where we have chosen to shift back into a habituated mentality over what the meditation process offers.

Indeed, judging means you have stepped back into the mind. If you can let things come and go, and watch quietly and dispassionately then you have gotten somewhere, you have gained a measure of peace and separation from the mind.

It is not very different from what the Buddha sat through under the Bodhi tree, a succession of fears and temptations made by your mind especially for you.

From my perspective, today...

While concentration is a necessary skill to develop to meditate,
mistaking that concentration for meditation is an attachment in the making.
As some Tibetans warn about some forms of meditation....Don't become like a cat watching a mousehole.
In other words, are you just observing the ebb and flow of all the phenomena that is arising, living, and departing or are you trying to direct it?
There is just about every possible feeling in the world that will arise at some time or another in a meditation practice. Judging our meditation in response to such visitations shows where we have chosen to shift back into a habituated mentality over what the meditation process offers.
Addressing the unknown, compared to what we've known, can often be challenging (and tiring) but is it not what we've been beckoning to?
3 steps forward - 2 steps back.

I find I get the best results when I have no goal other than meditation itself. When I expect the improvement to be gradual throughout my life. At first I needed a bit of faith but once I saw the benefits happening gradually I stopped worrying about doing it "right". Then again, I had formal instruction and doubt I would have seen as much improvement going it alone.

All meditation practitioners who honestly persevere will eventually have awakenings of differing strengths and longevity. The most common prelude to such things though seem to arise when the practitioner no longer seeks out such experiences.

Yep that's right 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾

The higher the expectations, the greater the disappointment...

I ask myself that sometimes. I've rarely experienced deep concentration or blissed out type meditations. My meditation life has largely been about returning to the experience of the body and letting go of thoughts. Just that has a profound impact on my well being. So I always try to learn and improve but I don't sweat it, whatever it is I am doing seems to have a positive impact.

I experience the same, the chatter goes at some point. Wish me luck.